Meet the Team

The AttorneysThe Tulsa Reparations Case survivors are represented by lead attorney Charles Ogletree, Jr., together with prominent national and local attorneys (including the late Johnnie Cochran, Jr.). The legal team was introduced to its clients, the Tulsa Riot survivors, by the Tulsa Reparations Coalition in 2003.

The legal team has pursued justice from the State of Oklahoma to the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals to the Supreme Court. When the Supreme Court declined to hear the appeal, lead attorney Ogletree approached Rep. John Conyers for Congressional support.

The ProducersMportant Films is dedicated to Keeping Our Stories Alive: African American history that otherwise might not be told.

“Before They Die!” our first major documentary, produced in conjunction with Tulsa Virtual Media Partners, LLC, tells the world the story of the survivors of the 1921 Tulsa Race Riot and their quest for justice. The documentary follows the survivors and their legal team headed by Professor Charles Ogletree, Jr., through the court system all the way to the Supreme Court and on to the U.S. Congress.

The MissionThe attorneys on the Tulsa Reparations Case, together with the film producers seek to:

Create and generate the Tulsa Fund, Inc. which will provide direct compensation of up to $50,000 per surviving victim; a total fund of $5 Million dollars;

Be the conduit to achieving justice and compensation for the living survivors of the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921;

Exhume and give a proper burial to those victims killed and buried in the Mass Grave found in Tulsa;

Create educational components to ensure that future generations of Americans learn all of our history and that this dark day in our history is never forgotten…Again.

Before there was 9/11, before there was Oklahoma City, before there was the internment of the Japanese Americans during World War II, before there was Rosewood (Florida), there was the 1921 Tulsa Race Riot. The Tulsa Race Riot Survivors have survived all of this history, and have yet to be compensated for what they lost in the riots. They, we, are seeking justice Before They Die!.